If you’ve taken the time to read the last two posts, then surely you must be aware that the time has now come to finally install Ubuntu; and if not, then oh well, just look at the pictures or something.

In my last two posts, I’ve attempted to explain the pains that I went through trying to get the best out of my new laptop. The problem originally started with my realization that I am in no means whatsoever a fan of Vista. Postpartum depression urged me to seek out XP’s familiar setting. Much to my dismay, though, XP would not install on my new laptop, so that was the first hurdle I had to surmount.

Not only was I interested in a return to XP, I was also curious about Linux; particularly Ubuntu. So, the obvious choice, or at least a logic one in my mind, was to dual-boot. In the previous two articles, I explained how to install XP on a new machine intended for Vista, as well as how to prepare a system for a dual boot operation. Okay, so now that we’re all up to speed once again, let’s take the plunge once more, shall we…

If this first step doesn’t seem blatantly obvious, then maybe Linux isn’t for you, but in order to do anything further you’ll need the Ubuntu installation disc. So, head on over to Ubuntu.com. and download the latest version — 7.10 at the time of writing. Once armed with the image file, you’ll need to burn this to a disc. If you already own it, I would recommend using Nero, but if not, InfraRecorder is an excellent, and not to mention free, alternative.

Once the disc has been burned and finalized, pop it into the machine you wish to persuade into conversion — and cross your fingers, for the moment of truth is at hand. Linux is often labeled as being far more stable than Windows, which is true for the most past, but the main problem is getting it to run in the first place. Not all hardware likes Linux flavor. If you’re unlucky, you may have in front of you a machine cursed with unsupported hardware. If this is the case, you may experience issues ranging the benign, such as a nonfunctional web cam, to real show-stoppers, like incompatible graphics cards or display devices. Curing any of these issues may require long and inquisitive searches of some of the less frequented fringes of the net. Fortunately though, there always seem to be a plethora of willing and able Linux hobbyists to help you out.

Oh, and if the CD doesn’t boot right away, make sure that your BIOS is set to boot from CD-ROM drive…

Okay, so assuming that the CD boots properly, you should soon see the Ubuntu desktop–but, hey, wait a minute! What happened; nothing was installed, or was it?

The CD you just popped into your machine is what is known as a Live-CD, meaning that it contains a bootable version of the operating system. Allowing the user to experience the full operating system without having to install a single file is a great way of demonstrating the potential of product that many might be too hesitant to install.

“Okay,” you say, “but I want to install it, not just demo it.” Well, see that little icon on the desktop, the one that says “Install”? That’s where you wanna be if you’re interested in giving Ubuntu a serious test-drive.

Starting up the Installer, you should see a dialog box that will guide you through the installation process in seven rather easy steps. The first three steps are real no-brainers, simply select your prefered language, the appropriate time zone and your keyboard layout.

Step four is were things start to get a little more exciting. Depending on how many drives and partitions your machine has, this step may be more or less complicated. Since I’m writing this as part of a series in which I explain how I managed to dual boot XP and Ubuntu on a Vista-shipped laptop, the path I chose to follow in step four of the Ubuntu installer is quite specific to my particular needs. In the previous article, I explained how GParted was used to partition my drive into a Windows partition and a Linux partition companioned by a SWAP partition. If you followed the same procedure as I did, and used GParted to prepare the drive, then all you’ll have to do is select the correct partition, and move on. Since we already used GParted for most of the heavy labor, it makes little sense to reformat/resize the partition again — unless, of course, you made a mistake the first time around. Not to sound to repetitive, but step four is where you really want to pay attention. It’s very important that you select the correct drive to install Ubuntu onto, otherwise you’ll be in serious danger of losing existing, potentially important, data.

Looking at the screenshot below, we see that the system I used to grab the screenshots has two physical hard drives: HDA and HDB. We can also tell that the first drive, HDA, has three partitions on it: HDA1, HDA2, and HDA3. The one we’re after is the one that is formatted as EXT3, so in this case that would be HDA2. To double check that this is the right drive, take a look at the size of the partition. If this number corresponds to what you specified in GParted then you’re good to go. Note that there is no need to check any of the boxes unless you want to reformat the drive again, which really can’t hurt. So, once again, if you want to reformat, check the box, otherwise just highlight the drive. And in case you are wondering, SDA1 is a removable thumb drive.

If you have decided to reformat any of the drives again, make sure to also hit the “Edit partition” button. This should bring up another dialog box, asking you to specify the new size of the partition as expressed in megabytes, what format to use, and where to set the mount point. If the drive that you are partitioning is meant to house an installation of Ubuntu, it’s critical that you use the EXT3 format and set the mounting point as a single forward slash. If you’re confused, refer to the picture below.

Once you’re done with the “Edit Partition” dialog box, hit “OK,” and then click “Forward” once you’re back at larger dialog box.

Step five is particularly useful for those of us who have decided to dual boot, since Ubuntu will scan existing partitions for any other operating system from which it might be able to port over any important documents and folders. I always prefer to start fresh, and since Gutsy Gibbon is capable of reading Windows partitions, I will leave this step up to you. If you’re not interested, just proceed to the next page.

Even though there appear to be 7 steps, number 6 is really the last one that really requires any work. The purpose of this step is to help you set up a user account, and it’s pretty straight forward. As such the only note to make here is that your log in name cannot be capitalized and that…uhm, oh yeah, don’t forget your password.

Series: Dual-Booting: XP and Ubuntu

Part I | Part II | Part III

After I got my new laptop, it didn’t take me all to long to determine that I wasn’t all too fond of Vista. Instead of hastily ditching Vista and running right back into XP’s familiar settings, I thought I’d try out Linux. Having heard myriad glowing reports of its user friendliness, Ubuntu seemed like the obvious choice. However, if I did dedicate my entire system to Ubuntu, there’d always be the problem of gaming; Linux isn’t exactly a hotbed for interactive entertainment. So, why not dual-boot?

There are several approaches to dual-booting a system with XP and Linux: you can either nuke the drive, partition it, and then reinstall both operating system; install Linux first, then partition and install XP; or you can install Windows first and then get Linux working afterwards. In this article, I’m going to choose the latter method, but no matter which way you choose to go, an essential tool to have in your arsenal is GParted.

GParted is a nondestructive UNIX-based partition editing application used to create, destroy, resize and move entire partitions and their file systems. The application is widely available on many Linux systems, but more importantly, it also comes as a live-cd. What that means is that you can download the application image, burn it to a disc and boot from it, without having to touch the rest of your system.

For the purposes of dual-booting, I’ll describe how to use GParted to shrink an existing Windows partition, so that the freed up space can then be reformatted as EXT3 and SWAP partitions to host a fresh installation of Ubuntu’s Gutsy Gibbon:

• First thing’s first: since you’re going to be making critical changes to your hard drive, make sure that the data on that drive is properly backed up and secure. Even though GParted is designed to be nondestructive, you never know what might happen; the wrong button might get pressed, or the power might fail — so backup first!

• Okay, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s start. In order to do anything you’ll need the program, so go get the GParted Live-CD image first and burn it to a disc. After the burning process finishes, pop the CD back in and reboot. Note: if GParted doesn’t load, then you’ll have to amend your machine’s boot order in the BIOS first.

• When booting from the Live-CD, you’ll be asked to input some system information, such as hardware configuration, language and keymap – don’t worry, it’s easy. A few seconds into the boot process, you’ll see a list of possible boot configurations. From my experience the first option, the one that reads “Gparted-liveCD 0.3.4-11 (auto-configuration),” seems to work just fine, so go ahead and select that. After a few more loading cycles, you’ll be asked to select the appropriate keymap and after that your language; the numbers you should be entering in are 41 and 33, respectively. This should take care of the setup, now just wait for the distro to finish booting.

• Now that everything is loaded and set you’ll want to get started by shrinking the existing Windows partition. To do this, select the partition, either from the list or from the graphical representation, and then hit the button labeled “Resize/Move.” This will bring up a smaller window from which you can choose by how much to shrink the existing partition. Notice that there are three input fields in this window; enter the desired new size of the partition in the second field, or just move the arrows at either end of the graphic. Since GParted aims to keep your existing data intact, the minimum size that an existing partition can be shrunk to is equal to the amount of data already on that partition. The other two fields in the window describe how much of the new free space will appear before the newly resized partition and how much of it will appear after it. How you organize the layout of the partitions isn’t crucial to getting both operating systems running, but it keeps everything organized. Once you feel comfortable with the changes, hit “Resize/Move” — don’t worry, the changes aren’t permanent yet.

• Once you’re back to the main interface, you’ll notice that the existing partition is smaller and that it is now surrounded on either one or both sides by unallocated dark gray space. To create any further partitions, which you’ll need to if you want to install Linux, simply select the dark matter and click “New.” Creating a new partition is just as simple as shrinking an existing one, the only difference being that you’ll also have to select the filesystem type; since the new partition will host a Linux install, select EXT3. When specifying the size of the new partition, make sure that you leave about 512MB to 2GB for a Linux swap partition. Think of the swap partition as an extension of your RAM, but on the hard drive.

• To create the swap partition repeat the previous step, but instead of choosing EXT3 as the filesystem type, select LINUX-SWAP. With the size set, hit “Resize/Move,” and return to the main interface.

• Up to this point, GParted hasn’t done anything to your hard drive; the only thing that you have done up to now has been planning out what to do. So, once you’re confident that you’ve set everything up correctly, press the “Apply” button to actually make the changes to the system. Hitting “Apply” should bring up a cautionary message, telling you that you’d better be sure about what you’re doing. Once you dismiss that message, GParted will get to work and the operations that you have specified will commence. Depending on the size of your hard drive, the amount of data on, and how many new partitions you are going to create, GParted may be at work for a couple of minutes or a couple of hours.

Once you’re done, GParted will kick you back to its main interface window, from where you can go on to the main menu and quit. If everything went to plan you should now have at least three partitions: one based on NTFS, another on EXT3, and then a third to serve as a SWAP partition. At this point you’re free to install whatever Linux distro you fancy.

However, if you’re new to Linux, then I would highly recommend you try out Ubuntu, which is highly user friendly, very stable, and extremely customizable. For help on installing Ubuntu, be sure to check back in a couple of days for the last installment of my dual-booting series to get detailed instructions on what to do and not to do…

Series: Dual-Booting: XP and Ubuntu

Part I | Part II | Part III

First released three years ago, Ubuntu has managed to permanently alter the Linux scene. Before Ubuntu grabbed the Linux world by storm, Linux was plagued by the stigmatic notion of being only for the geekiest of the geeks. Ubuntu’s undying focus on usability and ease of installation changed all that, and Gutsy Gibbon, the latest release, is the best yet at demonstrating this commitment.

Major New Features:

• GNOME 2.20
  • GNOME is the essence of Ubuntu’s Graphical User Interface (GUI), and version 2.20 introduces a long list of new features – some of which are actually pretty impressive. Thanks to this newest version of GNOME, Ubuntu will now feature: integrated desktop search, enhanced image browsing, simplified system preferences, better power management and laptop battery monitoring. One of the neatest features that I’ve seen so far has to do with the Evolution e-mail client (which is part of GNOME): if Ubuntu finds keywords in your e-mail suggesting that there should be an attachment appended to the message, it will automatically check to see if this is actually the case. If it can’t find the attachment, it’ll warn you before you send it off by mistake. It’s little things like this that often stand out the most.

• 3D DESKTOP EFFECTS
  • If you’ve done some research on Linux lately, you’ve probably come across a few videos that show off some very impressive 3D visuals. It may not increase your productivity, but the integration of Compiz Fusion into Gutsy is sure to please many. If you have a slower system, however, there is no need to worry. The developers have thought this through, and if your system doesn’t have the graphical horsepower to take advantage of the beautiful, but taxing, aesthetics of Compiz Fusion, your system will automatically fall back onto the standard 2D desktop environment.

• FAST USER SWITCHING
  • If your Linux box also happens to be the family PC that’s used by just about everyone who walks into the house, then you might be pleased to hear that with this latest version of Ubuntu you will be able to switch between different users without having to repeatedly log out and re-enter your username and password. The security provided by passwords will still be there, but you won’t have to jump through nearly as many hoops to switch from one account to the next.

• BETTER SCREEN CONFIGURATION
  • Anyone who’s installed Linux on a variety of machines knows that it’s not always a hassle-free experiences. Fortunately, the Ubuntu developers know this and they’ve taken the time to try to correct the most common issues. Gutsy Gibbon comes equipped with a decent variety of drivers, including those for ATI, nVidia, and Intel graphics chips. In addition to proper support for the most popular cards, Gutsy is also far more intelligent when is comes to detecting multiple monitors and the like. On top of this, a lot of the configuration options and settings needed to properly set up a display (or two) have been taken out of the terminal and put into a user-friendly dialog box. However, let me tell you from personal experience that things still aren’t a 100% perfect; if you happen to have a rather obscure setup like I do (with two off-brand displays that connected to a PC via different interfaces), you might still have a little trouble getting it all to work seamlessly.

• FULLY AUTOMATED PRINTER INSTALLATION
  • This one is as simple as it sounds: plug the printer in, let Ubuntu detect and configure it, and your ready to go…

• COMPLETE NTFS SUPPORT
  • Practically every major operating system has its own file system: Windows prefers NTFS, Apple like HFS+, while Linux has EXT3. This creates an inherent problem. What if you want to take a file off of one system and put it on another to work on? In previous Ubuntu distros, you could read files from an NTFS system to edit them, but you couldn’t write them back onto their original drive. Once again, Gutsy Gibbon comes to the rescue. Thanks to the integration of the NTFS-3g Project into Ubuntu, version 7.10 now fully supports both reading as well as writing.

• BETTER POWER MANAGEMENT
  • Linux and laptops is either hit or miss; it either works or it doesn’t. One major source of frustration for some users is that Ubuntu might not properly interface with the hardware present in the machine. This can be especially troublesome when the hardware in question is the battery and its management. Gibbon’s new Linux kernel promises to go easy on both the battery as well as the user’s lap.

• HARD DISK ENCRYPTION
  • Data security is very important these days. Whether you work for the government or maintain a simple blog, having your data securely tucked away (and backed-up) is extremely important, and the Ubuntu guys know this. That’s why they’re offering an alternate system installer that will allow you to set up Ubuntu so that the entire disk is encrypted. Unfortunately, this will only protect you if your system is off. For some more hardcore protection, check out TrueCrypt.

Overall, Gutsy Gibbon is yet another solid step forward for Ubuntu. As others have already noted, Gibbon does a far better job of being ready to use right out of the box (so to speak), than Windows. If you’ve never used a Linux system before, then let me honestly say that Gibbon is the perfect stepping stone; it’s just as user-friendly as most Windows operating systems, and yet it doesn’t relinquish any of the power that Linux is known for.

Well, this is an interesting development. Turns out that I was wrong; Dell has indeed decided to expand their PC lineup to include Linux right out of the box. Last week, on their IdeaStorm blog, Dell announced that due to intense demand Linux will soon be offered as an alternative to Windows on both personal computers and laptops. The blog post goes on to mention the results from the recent survey that Dell undertook to get a better understanding of the Linux community at large:

• More than 70% of survey respondents said they would use a Dell system with a Linux operating system for both home and office use.
• Survey respondents indicated they want a selection of notebook and desktop offerings.
• Majority of survey respondents said that existing community-based support forums would meet their technical support needs for a tested and validated Linux operating system on a Dell system.
• Survey respondents indicated that improved hardware support for Linux is as important as the distribution(s) offered.

Furthermore, Dell also stated that in the next couple of weeks the company will be busy figuring out what systems they will be offering Linux on, how these systems will be tested for compatibility issues, and what Linux distributions might be offered.

So, how will this move impact the future of Linux? This “commercialization” of Linux might be frowned upon some Linux purists, but ultimately it might prove to be the boost that Linux needed. One of the major advantages that will arise out of this deal will be that far more hardware vendors and designers will be inclined to make sure that their products will be completely compatible with the latest distributions of Linux, and that more developers might be willing to open up their application and driver code to the community for better support capabilities.

The concern for driver support was also readily apparent in the comments posted to the Direct2Dell blog, which asked users to list their specific needs and concerns for the future adoption of Linux. One of the most frustrating aspects of getting a Linux system fully up to task is getting the small things, like built-in microphones and such, to work properly. The concern is especially relevant to laptop users. I, for one, am currently shopping around for a new laptop and come across some interesting models from HP in particular, and I am not exactly sure what options I want to include. I am planning on installing Linux on this new laptop and have little desire to pay extra for options, like a built-in webcam, only to find out that there is no driver support for that particular feature in Linux.

In another post on the Direct2Dell blog, Dell clarifies that it is fully committed to getting Linux up and running with as many GPL-licensed drivers as possible. Dell has already been offering Linux systems for years to business and enterprise customers, and in the post they mention that “it’s been [their] standard operating procedure for the last 8 years on PowerEdge servers” to avoid closed-source drivers, and to include community developed alternatives instead. The current plan seems to be to include as many open source drivers as possible from Kernel.org, to ensure that almost any device hooked up to a new system will be supported from the get go.

Dell recognizes the importance of open source, GPL-licensed drivers which are maintained upstream in kernel.org. They allow users the widest choice of Linux distributions, effectively taking the specific hardware and distribution out of the decision-making process and let you focus on solving your business problems. We will work with our hardware partners to develop, test, and maintain Free drivers, and continue to make progress towards that goal for all drivers.

Dell hasn’t yet made any announcements as to when this new operating system option will actually be made available, but hopefully, we’ll see these new Linux systems sooner rather than later this year. If the same intense vigor is present in the actual sales of these Linux machines as in the demand for their adoption, then I really hope that other companies, like HP, take notice of this and follow Dell’s lead. With a little luck, the masses might soon know of three major operating systems: Windows, Macintosh, and Linux.